


Too Good For This World

by SuperNintendoChalmers



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M, Why did I do this to myself?, what the hell is wrong with me?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-27
Updated: 2014-12-27
Packaged: 2018-03-03 20:18:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2886236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuperNintendoChalmers/pseuds/SuperNintendoChalmers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I'm an asshole. And I made myself cry.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Too Good For This World

**Author's Note:**

> I'm an asshole. And I made myself cry.

Rick stood a few feet behind Beth's grave with Carol watching Daryl. He was on his knees next to it, silent. He had been silent since it happened and they were starting to wonder if he would ever speak again. Rick wouldn't be surprised if he didn't. Daryl had dug the grave himself, he hadn't wanted any help. He hadn't let anyone carry her body either. Whatever the burden was that he was carrying, he wanted to do it alone.

"Do you think he's going to come back from this?" he heard Carol whisper.

"I honestly don't know. I should have known something was up the morning he told me she was gone. I should have known."

"He's so heartbroken Rick. I don't know what we can do for him."

"This is worse than heartbreak Carol, his soul is broken. I don't think there is anything we can do for him anymore."

**((OoO))**

Tara sat next to Glenn on the porch steps of the house they buried Beth near watching Daryl sit next to her grave with his head hanging down, silent sobs shaking his shoulders.

"He must have really loved her, huh?" she asked Glenn. She had never met Beth, but no one had a bad thing to say about her. Nothing but positive words had come out of anyone's mouths since she first heard about the girl.

"Looks that way. I want to say I'm surprised, but I'm not. It was impossible not to love her."

**((OoO))**

Carl sat near Michonne with Judith in his lap looking through the window at Daryl still sitting next to the grave.

"She wouldn't want him to be like this." he said

"Yeah, I know. I think he does too, but right now he doesn't care."

"What do you think happened to them when they were on the road together?"

"Love."

**((OoO))**

Abraham was walking the perimeter with Tyreese when he saw that Daryl was still sitting next to the grave of the girl, Maggie's sister, that Daryl carried out of the hospital. His hardened heart had forgotten what it was to have sympathy in this world so he didn't quite understand the dedication Daryl's actions.

"How long you think he's going to cry over a piece of tail?"

"Hey now, that girl was the best of us. The only thing that could be more pure in this world is that baby in the house, if there was beauty to be found in this godforsaken world, Beth would have found it."

Abraham just shrugged and kept walking but he did keep his mouth shut after that.

**((OoO))**

Maggie walked over to Daryl and silently sat down near him. She wasn't even sure he knew she was there, but when his head twitched slightly in her direction, she figured he knew. Her guilt and regret were going to eat her alive. She knew that. Now she was just waiting for it to fester like a cancer and take over. Maybe if she would have looked. Maybe if she had been in the hospital with her she could have stopped her. But no, she didn't do any of those things. She checked her sister off as good as dead and took off on a failed mission, a decision that will haunt her for the rest of her life. The guilt in her almost welcomed the pain it would bring.

"I'm going to miss her." she said to a silent Daryl. She didn't need him to answer really, she just needed to say it out loud.

"You love her?" she asked him and looked at his face. At her question she saw fresh tears roll down his face and his shoulders strain against the sobs he was trying to keep in. That was answer enough for her and she left him in peace. In her mind he deserved to sit with her more than she did right now.

**((OoO))**

Daryl never did recover. Not totally. He eventually spoke, he fed and protected the group same as he always did, and he watched out for Carl and Judith like they were his own. He never spoke her name. They never asked him to. They never said her name in his presence out of respect for him. They all knew he loved her, he had never said so of course, but for a man who didn't talk much his face said everything.

He didn't live a long life after that, their world didn't afford that anymore. He hadn't kept count but he guessed it was a few years at least. He'd gone out the way he always knew he would, for someone else. He'd saved one of his family members and that was the most he could ever ask for. He had time to give his crossbow to Carl, tell Rick he was glad they had gotten the chance to be brothers, end of the world or not, and to ask to be buried with Beth's knife. He had never taken it off after, even though he had found bigger and better knives, hers was the best of them all.

He could feel the end, the pain had disappeared and he felt warm. It was good. It was right. He knew it would be okay, he was happy. He felt her before he saw her, felt her glow. She had glowed in life too, her heart being too big for the world as it was. He discovered a long time ago that the world didn't deserve her. He could see her now and she just as beautiful as she ever was. She had just taken his hand in hers smiling as she always had when he heard a whispered voice that sounded like Maggie's saying, "It's okay Daryl, you can let go. Beth is waiting for you." And she was.

"Come on Daryl Dixon, you're too good for this world." she told as she walked with him. He didn't know where they were going, but he was going to follow her, like he always had.

**Author's Note:**

> I would pretend to care about typos and grammar but I can't see through my tears.


End file.
